


Why Keep Anything?

by taylor_tut



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, FEELINGS ARE WEIRD, Gen, POV Peter Parker, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Post-Break Up, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Angst, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, probably doesn't make sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 00:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14581443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: When Tony and Pepper break up, Peter finds out that the subject of feelings and sentiment in Tony Stark are a lot more confusing than maybe they should be. He tries to show he cares in a way that means something to Tony.





	Why Keep Anything?

There were very few things that Peter didn’t like about his job, but if he had to specify one, it was that when he was asked to take a day off because Tony had “something going,” Peter usually had to find out what that something was from Business Insider. 

“Somethings” ranged from Stark Industries taking a heavy stock hit to a new product launch flopping.

Yesterday’s “something” hadn’t been listed in Business Insider.

Peter had found it in Us Weekly. 

“Tony Stark and Pepper Potts: Separating?”

The headline caught Peter’s eye in the checkout line at Walgreens, so he set his gum and his Redbull on top of it and purchased all three.

Usually, these kinds of articles were bullshit, and Peter knew that, but…

It made sense. Pepper had been making less and less of an effort to come to see Tony when she was in or around Manhattan, and every time Tony left to take her calls, he came back into the workshop minutes later looking tense and pensive rather than happy. 

Plus, this particular article had an interview with Pepper, brief and indescriptive enough to be believable, confirming that she and Tony were, in fact, no longer romantically involved.

Peter glanced down at his phone to a text from Tony.

“Just go straight home after school. No work for ya to do today.”

Well… maybe he’d just pretend he hadn’t seen the text.

Peter had his own override code for opening locked doors in Stark Tower (well, not quite. Peter had MADE his own override code when Tony had gone to the bathroom, but… well, there was no way Tony hadn’t figured it out, so if it still worked, Peter assumed that meant he had permission to use it.), so getting in was no problem.

He immediately tripped over a box of things that did not belong to Ms. Potts, but things that Tony only kept in the Tower because she visited. Two bottles of fancy French Vanilla coffee creamer, the boxes of cereal she liked, the toiletries that Tony kept for her, like deodorant and a toothbrush. Tampons had been put in the box and taken out--eh, Agent Romanov stayed here sometimes, so Tony had probably assumed he should keep them around anyway.

Peter snuck as quietly as he could down to the workshop, acting like FRIDAY hadn’t told Tony that Peter was on his way as soon as he’d turned onto his street on his twelve-speed bike.

He expected the room to look a lot different. All the little things, after all, had been from Pepper. The red and gold pen cups that prevented Tony from losing any writing implement that he set down for more than a minute, the coasters that kept his drinks from leaving water rings on his papers, the mugs (Tony had only ever bought one plain white one for himself) that said cute and reassuring things. There was a water-cooler in the corner that Pepper had purchased for him in the desperate pipe-dream hope that it would encourage Tony to drink water, organizational containers for separating Tony’s various trains of thought better than he was ever able to himself, and, of course, the Post-Its she left him.

“Don’t forget to sleep tonight--Love you!”

“If you’re late for this meeting tomorrow I’ll kill you--Not joking! Love you!”

“Good job today, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I love you!”

Peter had expected to walk into a minimalistic workshop free of any personal flare and was instead surprised by one which was largely unchanged from when he’d seen it two days ago.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter called. He’ll admit it, however ashamed of the thought he was--he briefly wondered if Tony had been drinking. 

But no, Tony looked up from his suit modification to roll his eyes irritably at Peter. 

“I thought I gave you the day off,” Tony accused. 

“I--didn’t see the text until I got here.”

“If you’re going to use that excuse, I recommend turning off your read-receipts.”

Peter flushed pink. The eggshells were starting to get uncomfortable on his feet.

“I heard about…” he trailed off, “and I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

Tony frowned. “Well, since you’re already here, I guess you can pick up where you left off on that new program you were so excited to give your girlfriend.”

“Karen’s not--!” he started to prickle, then brought himself back when the deflection became obvious. “I mean is there anything I can do for you,” Peter corrected despite knowing Tony didn’t need the clarification. “I know you’ve got to be pretty… Well, do you want help getting all her things out of here?”

“All the things I’m throwing out are in the box I heard you trip over upstairs,” Tony said distractedly. 

The pen cups, the coasters, the love-notes all stuck out in Peter’s vision like one of those “find what’s wrong with this picture” puzzles in his old Highlights magazines.

“You’re not… getting rid of anything else?” 

Tony shook his head. “Not that it’s any of your business,” he said pointedly, standing to pour coffee into a surprisingly dry mug shaped like a prescription bottle, “but no, I’m not.”

Peter blinked, didn’t understand, wanted more information but didn’t know how to ask.

“You only return things if it doesn’t matter whether you had them in the first place,” Tony explained to the air opposite the direction he’d have to face to meet Peter’s eyes, “and that felt worthless, so we agreed on a clean break. I’ll replace things as they break, just like I would if Pepper were here.”

“But she’s not,” Peter couldn’t help but argue. “I mean,” he backtracked under a wince from Tony, “I just mean that there’s nothing wrong with getting rid of reminders of something painful.”

Tony shook his head. “Nah,” he said simply. “Good, bad, it’s all shitty, so why keep anything?”

He… didn’t quite understand, but it was Tony Stark, so he couldn’t expect to understand all the time, anyway. Peter was already more fluent than most people, so part of him just wanted to accept it, but this sounded unhealthy. 

“Are you sure?” Peter asked. “Have you, uh, ran that by anyone else? Like Dr. Banner? Or Agent Barton?”

Tony turned around with an impatient and unfriendly stare. “Why do you care?”

It took Peter a moment to realize that wasn’t rhetorical. 

“Because I care about you,” he said. 

It took Peter another moment to realize that had been the original question.

He had 100 answers that he knew Tony didn’t want. 

“Which computer did I save my program on?” Peter asked. Tony pointed wordlessly.

He took a pen from Pepper’s cup and reached into his backpack for a sticky-note of his own.

“You’re the best, Mr. Stark!” signed with a little doodled picture of both the Spiderman mask and the Iron Man one, both smiling in a way that Tony would later affectionately call “nauseating” was left stuck to the bottom of the computer monitor. 

When he looked for it the next day, half expecting it to have been thrown away, he found it instead held to the plastic with a strip of clear tape for extra support. 

He wasn’t really sure if it was a good thing that Tony kept things, but… well, at least he knew it mattered to Tony that he’d gotten it in the first place.


End file.
